The Guidance & Molding of God

Prayers

The Deeps

LORD JESUS, Give me a deeper repentance, a horror of sin, a dread of its approach; Help me chastely to flee it, and jealously to resolve that my heart shall be thine alone. Give me a deeper trust, that I may lose myself to find myself in thee, the ground of my rest, the spring of my being. Give me a deeper knowledge of thyself as saviour, master, lord, and king. Give me deeper power in private prayer, more sweetness in thy word, more steadfast grip on its truth. Give me deeper holiness in speech, thought, action, and let me not seek moral virtue apart from thee. Plough deep in me, great Lord, heavenly husbandman, that my being may be a tilled field, the roots of grace spreading far and wide, until thou alone art seen in me, thy beauty golden like summer harvest, thy fruitfulness as autumn plenty. I have no Master but thee, no law but thy will, no delight but thyself, no wealth but that thou givest, no good but that thou blessest, no peace but that thou bestowest. I am nothing but that thou makest me, I have nothing but that I receive from thee, I can be nothing but that grace adorns me. Quarry me deep, dear Lord, and then fill me to overflowing with living water.

Devotional Readings

Charles Spurgeon Devotionals from “Cheque Book of the Bank of Faith”
Romans 5:3

‘Knowing that tribulation worketh patience’ Romans 5:3 This is a promise in essence if not in form. We have need of patience, and here we see the way of getting it. It is only by enduring that we learn to endure, even as by swimming men learn to swim. You could not learn that art on dry land, nor learn patience without trouble. Is it not worth while to suffer tribulation for the sake of gaining that beautiful equanimity of mind which quietly acquiesces in all the will of God? Yet our text sets forth a singular fact, which is not according to nature, but is supernatural. Tribulation in and of itself worketh petulance, unbelief, and rebellion. It is only by the sacred alchemy of grace that it is made to work in us patience. We do not thresh the wheat to lay the dust: yet the flail of tribulation does this upon God’s floor. We do not toss a man about in order to give him rest, and yet so the Lord dealeth with his children. Truly this is not the manner of man, but greatly redounds to the glory of our all-wise God. Oh, for grace to let my trials bless me! Why should I wish to stay their gracious operation? Lord, I ask thee to remove my affliction, but I beseech thee ten times more to remove my impatience. Precious Lord Jesus, with thy cross engrave the image of thy patience on my heart.

Elisabeth Elliot’s writings from Keep a Quiet Heart
“Lord, Please Remove the Dilemma”

from Elisabeth Elliot’s Keep a Quiet Heart, p. 46 Because my husband Lars is a Norwegian who would happily eat fish three times a day if I’d give it to him (I seldom do), I often have fishheads and fishbones to discard. I don't’ like the noise the disposal makes if I put them in there, so I fire them out the window onto the grass. A prompt and thorough garbage service is provided free of charge by the seven resident crows who materialize out of nowhere (nine minutes is the maximum time it has taken them to detect my offerings). Recently I watched one of them attempt to stuff all the pieces into his beak before his buddies had arrived. He carefully picked up everything except one long backbone. Here was a dilemma. How was he to grab the backbone without dropping the beakful he already had? Solemnly he surveyed the scene, stepped slowly around the bone and cogitated. So everything is done by instinct, is it? I don’t believe it. He was reasoning. He made a decision. He dropped the smaller pieces, grasped the bone right in the middle and raised it. Too unwieldy. More cogitation. Then, delicately, he lifted one end of the backbone, bent it around with his claw and picked up the other end. Now, holding both ends in his beak he succeeded somehow (I couldn’t for the life of me see exactly how) in gathering all but a few small bits and flew off, triumphant, to relish his find in solitude. Is there anyone reading this who is not faced with a perplexity of some sort? Some of you face serious dilemmas. We want to pray, “Lord, please remove the dilemma.” Usually the answer is “No, not right away.” We must face it, pray over it, think about it, wait on the Lord, make a choice. Sometimes it is an excruciating choice. St. Augustine said, “The very pleasures of human life men acquire by difficulties.” There are times when the entire arrangement of our existence is disrupted and we long then for just one ordinary day–seeing our ordinary life as greatly desirable, even wonderful, in the light of the terrible disruption that has taken place. Difficulty opens our eyes to pleasures we had taken for granted. I recall one of the times my second husband Add was released from the hospital when he had cancer. I did not suppose he was cured, but just having him at home once more was all I asked for that day. I set the table in the dining room with candlelight as I always did for dinner. I had fixed his favorite meal–steak, baked potato, salad, my homebaked apple pie. As he bowed his head to give thanks in the usual way, I had a sudden urge to do something very unusual–to drop to the floor and clutch his hands and sing “Let us break bread together on our knees.” I didn't’ do it. Things proceeded in the ordinary way, but there was a new radiance about them simply because we had been deprived for a while, and knew we would soon be deprived again, probably permanently. Paul said he had been “very thoroughly initiated into the human lot with all its ups and downs” (Philippians 4:12, NEB). He was hard-pressed, bewildered, persecuted, and struck down. God in His mercy did not choose to remove the dilemmas with which he was faced (some of His greatest mercies are His refusals), but chose instead to make Himself known to Paul because of them, in ways which would strengthen his faith and make him a strengthener and an instrument of peace ot the rest of us. Hard-pressed he was, but not hemmed in–God promises that none of us will ever be tempted beyond our power to endure. Bewildered as he was, but never at wit’s end–God promises wisdom to those who ask for it. Persecuted, but never left to “stand it alone”--God promises His unfailing presence, all the days of our lives. Struck down, Paul was not left to die, though some of his rescues were ignominious in the extreme–the great apostle, let down over a wall in a basket, and on occasion making it to land on a chunk of flotsam! Hardly the means he would have envisioned God’s using to fulfill His promises. But on second thought, why not? The absurdity of it all does us good. Life is absurd–on the surface of things–but every bit of it is planned, as Paul goes on to say: “It is for your sake that all things are ordered, so that, as the abounding grace of God is shared by more and more, the greater may be the chorus of thanksgiving that ascends to the glory of God” (2 Corinthians 4:15, NEB). Maybe Paul’s testimony, which has cheered countless millions, will cheer somebody who still faces a dilemma he has begged the Lord to remove. All of Paul’s were solved, but not all of them in Paul’s way or Paul’s time, Selah.

Other Devotionals

STORMS AND DISRUPTIVE MOMENTS

Malcolm Muggeridge said once during an interview,  “ As an old man…looking back on one’s life, it’s one of the things that strikes you most forcibly—that the only thing that’s taught anyone anything is suffering.  Not success, not happiness, not anything like that.  The only thing that really teaches one what life’s about—the joy of understanding, the joy of coming into contact with what life really signifies—is suffering and affliction.” Solzhenitsyn who, in referring to a disruptive moment(s) in his own life in the Gulag, wrote, “It was only when I lay there on the rotting prison straw that I sensed within myself the first stirrings of good.  Gradually, it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes, not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either, but through every human heart, and through all human hearts.  So bless you, prison, for having been in my life.” So like the great Russian writer, I have gradually become thankful for my disruptive moments.  They have forced me inward and downward into soul territory….almost every useful encounter I have had with God has occurred in the wake of a disruptive moment.  And as a result, I have not been the same. (Gordon MacDonald, “The Life God Blesses”)

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